


Grimoire Entry: Europa

by mabaricrunch



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Grimoire Entry, idk i just like the grimoires tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 00:30:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6135256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabaricrunch/pseuds/mabaricrunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lord of worlds looms behind me. <br/>I look to the sun in the distance, merely a blemish on the horizon, and wipe away the frost forming from my armour. A question begins to circle my mind: why did anyone live here?</p>
<p>Grimoire entry on Europa, Jupiter's moon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grimoire Entry: Europa

**Author's Note:**

> Destiny grimoire entries are my lifeblood and they should've been included in-game so to deal with the disappointment I wrote some of my own
> 
> I found this in the depths of my writing and thought I would post it pls enjoy

The Lord of worlds looms behind me. 

I look to the sun in the distance, merely a blemish on the horizon, and wipe away the frost forming from my armour. A question begins to circle my mind: why did anyone live here?

Humanity had, once, in the Golden Age. Now, all that is left of them is their remains: buildings carved into icebergs, trenches cut into the icy crust that would never heal again, debris of ships that never made it off the frozen satellite. A shame, really - this place has been touched by a race that do not belong here, tainting its beauty, scarring the surface in ways that can never be undone. 

Yet here I am.

Zavala wishes me to find something here. I am not sure what, and neither is he, but he knows there is something here that could benefit the City. And the reason I even draw breath is to serve the City, isn't it?  
As I explore this frozen wonder, I continue to ask myself the same question: why did anyone live here?

The fortresses carved into the ice are truly breathtaking, I cannot deny. They remind me of the architecture of the City, and I feel a strange sense of pride. I do not want to feel this way. We have scarred this place in incredible ways, but some could say the way the Vex transformed Mercury is also incredible. And it is, in its own way. I have been there once before, seen it with my own eyes. What was once a garden world is now a machine, with monstrous Vex structures emerging from its very core. Yet nature still finds a way among the metal, with greenness attempting to crawl from the tiniest of cracks, reaching for the scorching heat of the sun or shying away from the chill of the shadow.

Perhaps it is not the Vex that make Mercury so magnificent, but simply the planet's will to survive. 

The same could be applied to Europa. Many would argue that our colonisation of this moon was less extreme than what the Vex did to Mercury, less intrusive. But now, as I stare down into a chasm created in the ice to access the oceans below, I would be less inclined to agree. Life that had spent peaceful centuries in the freezing waters had been disturbed, the larger species caught and eaten. The ocean has since frozen over once more, but the gorge will never recover. Nor will the creatures within.

I turn to look towards Jupiter, and I suddenly realise why people wanted to live here. 

The magnificence of the planet cannot be put into words. Couple it with the glittering beauty of Europa, and the hostile environment almost seems appealing.

Alas, there is nothing here any longer. Nothing I can bring back for Zavala, except perhaps wisdom. Knowledge of past mistakes, and of how superficial and selfish humans were as a species during the Golden Age. The Darkness has since humbled them, but Europa is an example of how they used to be. Not as destructive as the Vex, perhaps, but don't the Vex also simply take whatever they wish? 

We destroyed the Earth, its nature, its beauty, and then complained that it was no longer beautiful enough. We moved to different planets and repeated it. We even moved to moons and filled them with artificial structures, cutting them open and using them as we wished, and then left when our power was threatened.

They say the Cabal destroy planets just for getting in their way. The Vex transform whatever worlds they wish. The Fallen scavenge on worlds that were once great, uncaring for the remaining residents.

Is humanity really so different from those they claim to oppose?


End file.
